Subject: Pisicchio's SENTENCE !!! Date: Wed, 02 Sep 1998 14:59:53 +0200 From: elisa To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Hi Frank and readers , I was not sure if it was right to write this letter . I spent one day reading all the messages about this " Pisicchio's affair " and I agree with some idea expressed in them but I found many persons pointing their attention to secondary problems .Then I tought :" It can happen also to me ...or to someone of my team mates and friends !!! What would I do ??? Suspended for ONE year ........ ?????? " and I decided to write this mail . First of all I want to say that I DON'T WANT to discuss about Gabriele Pisicchio ( I don't know him personaly , I never played with him , I don't care if he is nice or not ....) but I want to discuss his case and what happened to him . Every Magic player knows that cheating is the HOTTEST problem of this moment and everyone of us ( americans , italians , frenchs , germans , japaneses ... etc... ) want to fight against it . Now ( better to say ... Only Now .... ) the DCI decided to do something against cheaters and decided to do it with an American style : Hard and Immediatly !! and this is , probably , the POINT . I'm worried about that because "Hard and Immediatly" means , often , "unfair". I remember a letter written some month ago talking about the cheating problem . It had a very "aggressive"style and the main concept was that if the cost to clean-up the Magic World is to sacrifice some innocent to the ALTAR of the justice .... it's OK !! We can sacrifice SOME players !!!! But ....... WHY ??????? Who say that's right ???? And here comes , probably , the difference between the American and the European mentality . I DON'T WANT to make a political or ethical discussion , I'm only trying to explain what happened and to understand what is going to happen in the FUTURE . It's notorius that USA is hard against crime ( in many states the death sentence is in force ) and many innocents were killed guiltless ( please ... don't take this consideration as a personal attack to you ........ americans ). In every european country the death sentence has been abolished since the end of the second world war ( and even before) and life imprisonment is going to the same direction . Why does this interest MAGIC ( are u asking to yourself ) ????????????? I think it's important because regards the FUTURE of this marvelous game and of all the Magic players ( YOU , me ... every player ). The DCI have to decide which system will be used to fight the "war" against cheaters !!!! The American one ...or the European one ????? Not one person can say which is the "best" and both them have some drawback . If the soft way ("european") will be used , probably , not every cheaters will be punished immediatly and the punishments will be not so hard but NO innocents will be sacrificed ; if the DCI will continue to use the hard system ("american" ... which appear the way they want to follow ) the cheaters punished will be more ( but .. how many more ?? ) and they will be hit very hard and soon but .... How many innocents will have to pay for this WAR ????? I don't want want to be one of them !!!!!!!!!!!! -MAKE YOUR OWN DECISION !!!- Now , I can't say if Pisicchio is guilty or not but if his version is true and the head-judge didn't allow him to see ... and note ... "only" see his deck , it seems like the DCI wants to give to all the players a MESSAGE and the message is: "We wanna eliminate cheating from Magic !!!"..... and Pisicchio was only the MESSENGER , maybe the first innocent or maybe the first cheater "killed" in the war . You have to understand "us" ( italians ) because in this moment we feel the "shapegoats". One of our best players has been elimitad from the PRO scene and our reputation compromised ( yess .. I know ... we are not all cheaters ... but how many, playing against an italian will think : "Ohhh italian .. the ONLY disqualified player is italian ....he is probably a cheater too !!!" .... How many will think THIS ????? -BE HONEST !!!!- Understand , also , that we are "europeans" and many of us find the DCI sentences excessive . Maybe we are right , maybe we are wrong , maybe our fault is to consider Magic always as a game but we "love" this game and we want to do the BEST for it . I'm worried !!! I think the system the DCI is going to use to solve "THE PROBLEM" is dangerous many good and honest players risk to pay for honest mystakes ( never happened to forget a card of the Side Board in the main deck ????????? ... maybe a Karma ...playing against a mono-red ????? ) . And I also think it won't help new players to get in the game ; new players often play "sloppy" they have to make experience ... like everyone !!! Hard punishments could be a "big" problem for beginners . LET'S think !!! The death sentence , maybe , is not the only solution ( remember that there is no choice to make justice if you condamn to the death someone guiltless ) ... and I think that the sentence Gabriele Pisicchio recived can be considered for a PRO Magic player as a DEATH SENTENCE . I hope the DCI will do the right thing , we have to hope it . I don't know exactly what is the solution .The only thing that I can suggest is to prepare "good" judges ; I saw too many incopentent and arrogant judges in my young career of player and personaly I think it is a problem as serious as cheating . Thank you for your attention. Riccardo Sandroni Team Furlan's Dijnns -Udine- rsandron@stud.iuav.unive.it